It seems that the travel story so far has been a tale of bureaucracy and troubles. I hope that with this part, that will cease, and I can finally tell you about the charms of Portugal.
It's pretty well-equipped, there's a lot of food in the fridge, and some of it says «free food»
Our flight was a success, and in the middle of the day we stepped out into summer. Palm trees and warmth instantly bring on a wave of positive vibes, even considering the fact that we had to stash our luggage somewhere and then wait for our friends, who were only flying in after nine in the evening.
No biggie, they took our luggage into storage at the airport without any problems, unlike in Berlin, where
You have to unpack and lay everything out
Your stuff gets checked for drugs
While all that was going on, we headed from the airport to
Lisbon. The metro is inexpensive, about a euro and a half for a single ride, cheaper if you buy a few at once.
Succulents of the most bizarre shapes and colors are all around, carefully planted in various spots, even in the corners near the doors.
We strolled around Lisbon, just following our noses. Among the curious observations — even a small grocery store had a toilet. However, inside it was so cluttered with mops that a thought crossed my mind: it's either here just to tick a box, or to comply with some bureaucratic requirements.
Our noses led us, as it turned out, toward Eduardo VII Park, renamed in honor of the English king's visit in 1902. From my point of view, it all looks a bit wild, but we have to cut our ancestors some slack. Back then, they didn't yet know about body positivity, radfem, and freeganism, nor the other pillars of Western civilization.
The park looks roughly like this during the day. Because of the elevation change and the wide open space, it's quite impressive, even though it's not all that big in size.
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We walked quite a bit. Our fitness trackers consistently show over 10 km every day anyway. True, while you're riding in a car, they add 2-3 kilometers to your total, but we still walk a lot regardless.
While walking, we reached a boulevard with a bunch of boutiques. I don't know about you, but I find it rather funny to look at travel suitcases in shop windows priced at 1100 euros. Consumerism in all its glory, what can you say. Not to say I'm totally against it, but at the very least I consider it excessive. We were just about to head to the airport when our friends texted us that they had landed. No big deal, the airport isn't far. While they were grabbing their suitcases and sorting out the rental car, we made our way to them.
So, we are all together again, and the mess with the delayed plane and the insurance was almost over. The reunion was joyful, but after such a long day everyone was tired and a bit irritable. However, it wasn't all over yet, because we still had to make it to Faro.
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At first, we wanted to rent a Mercedes minibus, but Andrey is an attentive and cautious guy. The minibus was parked so close to a pillar that it was impossible to drive out without hitting it with the mirror. The company employee who was processing the car rental said that he didn't even have a driver's license, so he couldn't move the minibus even if he wanted to.
Upon sober reflection, we decided we weren't such hotshots to rent such a new and expensive-to-repair car without having insurance. Having been burned on the flights, we were now super nervous, and tried to figure out how to insure ourselves so we wouldn't have to pay the deductible (excess), which for a minibus can be very substantial, around 1500-3000 euros. We didn't manage to figure it out quickly, so we piled into a Fiat parked nearby, which we didn't regret in the slightest later on.
It's about 300 km to drive from Lisbon to Faro, and we reported to the house caretaker that we'd arrive at one. As it turned out later, this was one of many times when our estimates failed us and were overly optimistic. We arrived at our village of Fuseta sometime around two, where the manager of our pad, Paola, was already waiting for us.
With that, our misadventures with the delayed flight came to an end, praise the Ocean, and we found ourselves where we had originally aimed to be.
In the next part, I'll tell you about the village and what we saw around it.